Approximately every 10 years, the Shawnee Mission School District finds something for taxpayers to vote on in order to improve the schools. The last bond was voted on and passed in April of 2004 to build a new, more usable library onto Mission Valley Middle School. It took two years to begin construction on the school, and it was finished in 2006, taking two full years to complete.

Since then, the district has had $20 million cut from their budget, and has had to severely change it accordingly. This year, they have another dilemma: they may have to close schools in the district — Mission Valley included.

At the beginning of the Board of Education meeting on Nov. 8, superintendent Dr. Gene Johnson announced that the Board would postpone the decision of closing Mission Valley, and has yet to set a date to vote on the closing itself. The decision brought on mixed reactions from attendees.

The rationale behind waiting to decide on closing the school is that the Board of Education needs more time and more information in order to make the right decision. They are looking at the pros and cons of closing schools in the district.

The decision to close Mission Valley versus closing Indian Hills Middle School, on the other hand, deals in budgetary terms. When the director of facilities Rusty Newman looked at the improvements needed for each of the schools, Indian Hills had less repairs needed to hold the large amounts of students.

This has upset many Mission Valley and Indian Hills parents, including Mission Valley parent Chris Bihuniak who had just bought a home so that his children would be closer to Mission Valley.

“This home allows my three sons that will be attending Mission Valley to walk to school,” Bihuniak said. “And, it would allow my students to walk to Rock Band Academy after school. This saves money on gas, and is overall better for the environment.”

Junior Elle McClenney, a former Mission Valley student, is upset that Mission Valley is closing because at she realized two things that she loves to do during her time at the school: being in musicals and reading. She is also upset because if Mission Valley closes the property value will decline due to it being in the Shawnee Mission South area.

Johnson has created a group that is using Mission Valley as a model to look for improvements that could be used in all of the other middle schools in the district. The committee has been put together to decide whether or not two middle schools should be used for the East and North areas, and to advise Johnson. The committee should meet approximately four to six times, clocking about three hours per meeting. It is comprised of parents, administrators, teachers, classified personnel and students that will contribute to a list of improvements that could be made.

These will be similar to the improvements each high school went through, that the district just recently completed.

If Johnson’s council decides that it would be beneficial to transfer the Mission Valley students to Indian Hills Middle School, then various changes will occur at Indian Hills.

The staff from Mission Valley, for the most part, will move over to Indian Hills. Although the school could be closing, the district still needs to keep the student to teacher ratio relatively the same. Members of the staff might also go to work for the district in other positions.

“The staff needs to follow the students because we staff buildings on a ratio on the secondary level,” Bysfield said. “And this current year, the ratio is 18.5 per certified teacher. I think people feel that if we put two schools together class sizes will be bigger, but they will not be bigger because it will still be staffed on the current ratio for the district.”

Along with this, the way the school itself operates would be different. Since there would be close to the same amount of classrooms but more teachers, it would operate more like East. Almost every classroom would be used each period, and the teachers would be teaching in rooms that are not necessarily their homeroom.

Bysfield shared a little known fact about the history of Mission Valley and Indian Hills. In the late 70s and early 80s, Indian Hills held all of the students that would then go on to East in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. The district added Meadowbrook Middle School, which is now known as Mission Valley. This was because the district was expanding and needed another middle school. When all of the students in the area attended Indian Hills, it was around the same number that would attend if Mission Valley were to be closed.

This goes to show that the Indian Hills was built to hold a larger capacity of middle school students. If the district chooses to close Mission Valley, Indian Hills will have to return to its previous student population, if not a larger one, a fact that the district officials are keeping in mind.

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